


bring him home

by ShyAudacity



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Archie Is a Good Friend, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, FP and Jug's mom are just mentioned so yeah, Future Fic, Gen, Homesickness, Hugs, Hurt Jughead Jones, Jughead Jones Needs a Hug, Jughead Jones-centric, Reunions, Sad Jughead, jug is super sad guys, just a lil, let me know if i forgot a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 09:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10761003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyAudacity/pseuds/ShyAudacity
Summary: “I just want my sister back, Arch.” He mumbles, “I miss Jellybean... I mean I’ve never broken up with anyone but I’m pretty sure this is what heartache feels like. Somedays it’s all that I can think about, getting to see her again, I mean. I can’t stop doing it, it’s too much. I’m afraid it’s going to eat me alive, Archie.”ORJughead is a sadboi and misses his sister and has a lot of feelings about it. Archie is there to help.





	bring him home

**Author's Note:**

> Everything is platonic and Jellybean is 14 because fuck it, I make the rules here. Also, don't even speak to me about the last five minutes of 1x11 because i'll scream at you for all eternity. Let me know if theres any mistakes.

Archie makes it until fourth period before he realizes that he hasn’t seen Jughead since yesterday. He remembers Jughead saying something the previous day about needing to speak with his dad, but he hadn’t been home when Archie had gone to bed. Then, he had woken up late and figured that Jughead had gone to school without him.

Archie finds Betty at lunch.

“Betty, have you seen Jughead today?”

“No, I haven’t seen him all day. He didn’t walk with you?”

“No,” Archie tells her, “I woke up late I hadn’t seen him at home so I just assumed that he left for school early without me or something.” 

“Maybe he wasn’t feeling well so he went home? You probably just missed him this morning. If you want we could go back to your place now and see if he’s there. Just to make sure, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah that’s a good idea.” From the outdoors lunch area, the two of them take the shortcut through the woods back to the Andrews house. Archie throws open the door as soon as he gets it unlocked.

“Jughead? Jug, are you here?” he calls, no response. “Betty, you check down here, I’ll look upstairs.”

She nods, headed towards the kitchen while Archie takes to the staircase two at a time. He looks everywhere, the bathroom, his dad’s office, both of the bedrooms, but he can’t find Jughead anywhere. The paranoia is starting to kick in; Archie is worried that something bad could have happened to his best friend. When he returns to the main floor, he finds Betty in the living room, but still no Jughead.

“Where could he be?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know, Arch. He obviously can’t be at the drive-in, could he have gone to his old tree house?”

“No, no his dad took it down a few summers ago, no one was using it anymore and it wasn’t safe to go up there.” Archie informs her. “Maybe Mr. Jones knows where he is. Jug said something last night about going over to talk with his dad, we could go check the trailer park, he might have crashed there for the night and just forgot to tell me.”

Betty agrees to the idea, and the two of them take off. Archie feels like his heart is going to beat out of his chest, the bad feeling in his gut is growing with every second. The utter thought of something being wrong with Jughead is enough to send Archie into a tailspin. The two of them had had a rough year with everything that happened around town, but they still managed to come back to each other, Archie plans to keep it that way.

Betty and himself make it to Jughead’s old trailer in record time. They get there to find that the door is unlocked, the pair let’s themselves in.

The scene in front of Archie nearly makes his heart shatter. Jughead is sitting on the couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table, looking distraught. Jughead doesn’t acknowledge the pair when they come in, he doesn’t even move. He stares blankly at his feet, his eye glazed over and puffy.

“Jug? Buddy, are you okay?” Archie asks.

When he doesn’t answer, Archie and Betty move towards him, coming into his line of sight. Betty looks at him warily when Jughead still doesn’t respond to the two of them. Archie takes a seat at Jughead’s right side while Betty kneels in front of him, placing a gentle hand on his knee.

“Juggie,” Betty tries, “Can you tell us what happened?”

Jughead looks down, his chin wobbling.

“Jug, c’mon please we just wanna help. What’s wrong?” Archie all but begs.

“She’s not coming back,” the raven-haired boy says, his voice barely above a whisper. “My Mom called, and she isn’t coming back to Riverdale. She claims that she can’t face it, says that it’s too hard after everything that’s happened here. Like she’s even been here for any of it to begin with, she doesn’t know the half of it.”

“I’m so sorry Jug.” Betty says.

“That’s not ev- she won’t let Jellybean come back, not even to visit. Mom thinks that it isn’t “safe” for her here, but yet she didn’t even ask me if I’d go with her. I just-” Jughead stops, choking on his words, fat tears roll down his face mercilessly.

Archie puts his arm around Jughead’s shoulder and he sags into it, curling into Archie’s lap and crying in earnest. As he sobs loudly into his best friend’s lap, Betty moves to sit on the couch next to Jughead. She and Archie rub their hands down his back in an attempt to console him. Archie speaks up, not once believing the words that come out of his mouth.

“It’s okay, Jug, we got you. It’s gonna be okay.”

He then looks to Betty, sharing another sad look, they know that somehow, neither one of them will be able to fix this.

* 

Jughead doesn’t leave the trailer for a week after his mother calls.

Archie gets his dad to call the school and tell them that Jughead is out with the flu, explaining the situation to him as best as he can without giving away too many details. Archie and Betty stop by every day after school, every day is the same. Archie and Betty will let themselves in and find Jughead on the couch or asleep on the floor in his sister’s old bedroom.  

Jughead hardly speaks to either of them, when he does it’s in monosyllabic sentences, not bothering to look either of them in the eye. When he finally returns to school, it catches everyone off guard. Veronica, who hadn’t been informed of his reappearance, had gasped and dropped her latte in the middle of the hallway.

“I thought he had died or something.” She later told Betty.    

Jughead continues to ignore all of them except for Archie, because Archie is only one that he feels like he can trust at the moment. Archie goes along with it for a few days before he gets tired of playing the mediator between the rest of his friends and his blood brother, as Jughead had once put it. He not only begs Jughead to converse and eat lunch with the gang again, but convinces him to move back to the Andrews house. It costs Archie a month’s worth of burgers, but decides that it’s worth if he gets to have Jughead around once more.

When the two boys come home that night, Fred smiles lightly and gives Jughead a small hug.

“It’s good to have you back, kiddo.” He says.

Jughead nods, then excuses himself to bed for the night, despite how early it is. Archie pulls a confused face, then follows Jughead up the stairs a few minutes later.

Archie finds him at sitting beside his bed, watching a video on his phone. Upon approaching Jughead, Archie realizes that it’s a coming home video. A kid is talking to his dad about going to the movies then his older brother pops out from the bedroom and surprises him. Jughead turns it off when he realizes that Archie had been watching over his shoulder.

“Why are you watching that, Jug? They always make me feel all emotional when someone shows one to me.”

Jughead shrugs. “I don’t know, I guess I just like watching them.”

Archie eyes him with curiosity, watching his friend sit in a stoic silence. The two boys sit there for what feels like an eternity before Jughead speaks up.

“I just want my sister back, Arch.” He mumbles, “I miss Jellybean... I mean I’ve never broken up with anyone but I’m pretty sure this is what heartache feels like. Somedays it’s all that I can think about, getting to see her again, I mean. I can’t stop doing it, it’s too much. I’m afraid it’s going to eat me alive, Archie.”   

“I know, Juggie, I know.” Archie says softly, hugging Jughead around his shoulders. Jughead grabs Archie’s forearms, letting out a shuddering breath. His head drops to his chest as he lets the tears fall. The two of them stay sitting like that until Jughead seemingly cries himself out and decides to go to bed for the night.  

* 

Weeks pass, and Jughead is mostly back to being his usual sarcastic, quick witted self. However, his friends can tell that knowing that his mom and sister aren’t returning to Riverdale is still eating him up inside. All of them do what they can to keep his mind off of things, but that only works for month before Jughead calls them all out on coddling him.

“I’m a person, not a grenade. I’m not going to have a meltdown if you say the wrong thing around me.” He informs them. After that, they give him his space again.

Archie knows that Jughead still misses his sister an insane amount. He hears Jughead talking to Jellybean on the phone all the time. He hears him laughing and talking to her about all the things that they’re going to do once they see each other. It makes Archie heart swell to see Jughead more at ease after being on the phone with his sister. The phone calls do little to stop the ache in his chest at the fact that she’s so far away, but in moments like this Jughead will take what he can get.

The weeks quickly turn into months, somedays for Jughead are better than others. Most days he can get by without spending all of his awake moments thinking about what he would or wouldn’t give just to see Jellybean for five minutes, just to hug her. Some mornings he’ll wake up, having had a dream where he was reunited with his sister again, then have to remind himself that she isn’t actually here. On days like that, he has to fight the urge to stay in bed.

Before they know it, a year has passed since Jughead has seen his sister and his mom. On the anniversary of the day Jughead’s mom called to say she had no plans of returning, Archie can tell that it’s going to be a hard day for his friend. He votes that they stay home from school and have a marathon. Jughead agrees, but barely pays attention to the movies, even during his favorite scene of _Pulp Fiction_.

Jughead had stopped begging his mother to come back months ago, after a particularly nasty fight that they’d had a little while back. He’d given up on the idea of seeing either of them again, the phone calls between himself and his sister were becoming fewer and far between.

This is when Archie knew that he had to do something. One day, a few weeks before Jughead’s next birthday, he made a phone call.

“Hi, Mrs. Jones? Hi, this is Archie Andrews- yeah, yeah, I’m good, we’re all good. Look, I’m calling because I know that Jughead’s birthday is coming up and I had an idea that I wanted to run by you…”

*

It’s the first weekend in November, and Jughead feels himself being shaken awake at what seems to be an ungodly hour of the morning. As far as he’s concerned, Saturday’s are meant for staying in bed.

“You better have a good reason for waking me up early Archie or I swear to god I’ll push you down the stairs.”

“C’mon, Jug, get up. It’s Saturday pancakes.” Archie says, his tone full of glee. “A Jughead and Archie sleepover tradition, I even asked dad to get an extra can of that whip cream stuff so you can eat it yourself like you always wanted to. Hurry up, before they get cold.”

“Every day with us is a sleepover, genius, so we should really come up with a new tradition. Also, we haven’t done Saturday pancakes in years.”

“Well, we’re doing them today. Also, I invited a special guest to breakfast, so if you don’t hurry up she’ll eat all of the pancakes before you can.”

“Yeah- wait, what?” Jughead doesn’t have a chance to ask who he invited to breakfast before Archie is halfway down the stairs. Confused, he pushes himself out of bed and stomps down the stairs after his best friend. “Dude, if you invited Betty then you can’t call her a special guest because we see her all the-.”

He stops when he sees the familiar raven-haired figure kneeling in front or Vegas, giving him a treat. He’s certain that his jaw drops when the figure stands, facing him and realizes that it’s his sister.

Jellybean’s hair is longer than he’s ever seen and she’s grown a lot, coming up to Jughead’s chin with her boots on. Her ripped skinny jeans and Ramones T-Shirt makes sense to Jughead, she’s exactly like what he’d imagined her to be at this age. He doesn’t know what to do other than gape at her, like he magically forgot how to function in a matter of seconds.

She beams at him. “What? Are you going to hug me or you just gonna stand there and drool all over yourself?”

At her words, Jughead doesn’t hesitate to rush towards her, wrapping her up in his embrace and holding her like it’s most important thing he’s going to so all year. They stand hugging for a long while, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready to pull away from Jellybean. She pulls back eventually, placing her hands on either side of Jughead’s face.

“Happy Birthday, Juggie.” She says, still smiling at him.

Jughead lets out a small laugh, then pulls her close again. He looks at Archie over her shoulder and mouths “thank you” to him. Archie nods, grinning widely at the scene in front of him. In that moment, Archie knows that he’s never going to be able to top this gift. He knows that he just gave Jughead the best thing that he could have ever asked for, Archie gave him his family back.

The three of them go to town on the food Archie had prepared, practically goring themselves on the pancakes and toppings. The three of them spend the whole morning catching up, telling stories and laughing the entire time. Jughead swears he doesn’t take his eyes off of Jellybean for minute, afraid that she’ll disappear if he does. When she doesn’t evaporate in front of him like he thinks she will, Jughead knows for a fact that it’s the best birthday he’s ever going to have.

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever project onto characters but give them the ending you wish you had? Yeah, me neither. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, let me know what you thought/if you liked it. Have a great day!


End file.
